Background: When asked what a desirable fertility level for populations might be, most politicians, journalists, and even social scientists would say it is around two children per woman, a level that has been labelled by demographers "replacement-level fertility." The reasons given for considering this level of fertility as something to aim at usually include maintaining the size of the labour force and stabilizing the old-age-dependency ratio. Objective: In this paper, we scrutinize this wide-spread view by introducing education in addition to age and sex as a further relevant source of observable population heterogeneity. We consider several criteria for assessing the long-term implications of alternative fertility levels and present numerical simulations with a view on minimizing the education-weighted total dependency ratio and complement this with the goal of reducing the amount of greenhouse gas emission in the context of climate change. Methods: We perform thousands of alternative simulations for different fertility levels (assumed to be constant over time) starting from empirically given population structures and derive the rate of fertility which yields the lowest level of our education-weighted dependency ratio. We study the sensitivity of our results to different parameter values and choose to focus on the actual populations of Europe and China over the course of the 21st century. Results: The results show that when education is assumed to present a cost at young age and results in higher productivity during adult age, then the fertility rate that on the long run keeps dependency at a minimum turns out to lie well below replacement fertility both in Europe and in China under a set of plausible assumptions. The optimal fertility level falls even lower when climate change is factored in as well. Conclusions: We conclude that there is nothing magical or particularly desirable about replacement level fertility. (authors' abstract)

Purpose: This research was designed to contribute to a greater understanding of the characteristics of female entrepreneurs in South Africa by interrogating whether certain elements of their Social and Human Capital impact on their business performance, measured in terms of turnover and business size in terms of employee numbers. Methodology: This was an exploratory study that used quantitative data collection and analysis techniques. The unit of analysis was women business owners in South Africa that fit the criteria of owning and running businesses. The web application Survey Monkey survey tool was used from which the entrepreneurs could access the online questionnaire. The impact of elements of Human Capital and Social Capital on business performance was studied by looking for associations with a number of independent variables including education, social networking, age of business, and age and experience of the entrepreneur. Outcome: Pearson Chi-square test, and generelised linear(GLM) models revealed that Human Capital, does influence the business performance, although only on specific elements of business performance. Social Capital also influences the business performance, although only on specific Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

The purpose of this multi-case study research was to determine variables that affect The Perceived Success of Fair Family Employee Compensation in South African family businesses. Five propositions: Human Capital, Outside Advice, Succession Planning, Fairness and Family Harmony were tested and as a result, Human Capital, Fairness and Family Harmony were deduced to have a positive influence, while Outside Advice and Succession Planning had a non-significant influence. The present research effort begun with an in-depth literature review on family business and the variables: Human Capital, Outside Advice, Succession Planning, Fairness, Family Harmony and Fair Family Employee Compensation, followed by a qualitative explanatory multi-case study research design using embedded units of analysis and provided a valuable insight into compensation issues regarding family businesses in South Africa. Replication logic was used to generalise the results and it was recommended that the preliminary theory regarding Outside Advice and Succession Planning be revised and tested with another set of cases, while the results indicated that Human Capital, Fairness and Family Harmony could be generalised to the broader theory.

The diploma thesis is focused on human capital influence on regional development and regional competitiveness. The goal is to evaluate influence of educational structure on development indicators in regions of the Czech Republic. In the theoretical part are found chapters dedicated to: definition of human capital, investments in human capital and its influence on socio-economic sphere. The practical part is focused on analysis of relation between educational sphere and indicators of the regional development, such as: net disposable income per capita, gross domestic product per capita, economic activity rate, unemployment rate, criminality rate and rate of violent crime. In case of net disposable income per capita and gross domestic product per capita was found correlation. The education structure has an impact on these macroeconomic indicators. Regarding economic activity rate and criminality rate, there was found a correlation but much less intensive than expected. In the last group of indicators, unemployment rate and rate of violent crime, there was not found any correlation whatsoever. In the practical part of the thesis was also examine that massive education is not an effective solution and an answer in case of solving all regional development problems. As much as important education is, without effective use of it this potential stays only as a potential and not as an output.

This thesis explores three important factors that have been central to the pursuit of economic development especially in case of developing countries. These are human capital, corruption and institutions. The first chapter presents an analysis of the role of corruption in determining the distribution of income and, with this, the degree of poverty and inequality. The analysis is based on an overlapping generations model in which individuals may seek to improve their productive efficiency (and hence earnings) by supplementing or substituting publicly provided services (such as education and health) with personal expenditures on human capital investment. Because of capital market imperfections, their ability to do this depends on their inherited wealth which serves as collateral for loans. Corruption is reflected in the pilfering of public funds and a reduction in public service provision, the effect of which is to reduce the earnings of those who rely on such services and to exacerbate the extent of credit rationing for these agents. The dynamic general equilibrium of the model is characterised by multiple steady states to which different income classes converge. Higher levels of corruption lead to higher levels of poverty and may result in complete polarisation between the rich and poor by eliminating the middle class. The second chapter presents an analysis of the threshold effects of human capital on economic growth. Using a sample of 126 countries (1970-2012), we estimate a dynamic threshold panel model following Hansen (1999) and Caner & Hansen (2004). Our results are twofold: first, there exists a significant threshold level of development (proxied by capital stock per capita) below which the effect of human capital on economic growth is insignificant, whereas it is positive significant above it; second, while looking into the impact of institutional quality, we find significant thresholds of interaction between institutional quality and development.

This thesis focusses on three areas in the theory of intertemporal utility maximization. First, I integrate the theory of labor supply and human capital accumulation. I formulate a model of intertemporal utility maximization in which time is allocated between leisure, schooling and work. It is assumed that the wage rate is a function of years of schooling and experience which, in turn, is a function of the total number of hours that the individual has worked so far. Second, I develop a new technique which allows us to estimate functional relationships derived from optimal control problems for which no analytic solution exists. Third, I estimate the proposed model for two different data sets. Flexible functional forms are employed for estimation purposes and every effort is made so that the empirical model approximates as closely as possible the theoretical one. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

National economic competitiveness is a major concern to governments, firms, and individuals in an increasingly globalised world. Culture is known affect economic competitiveness, but there is little existing research that links Hofstede’s cultural dimensions with the Human Capital Indicators in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index. U-blox is an international firm with offices around the world. The firm has grown through acquisitions and has become a key player in the wireless communication and positioning semiconductors business. The chosen topic will study the cultural aspects of a selected group of u-blox subsidiaries. The values in a workplace are in fact influenced by culture and by their human capital. Using Hofstede’s dimensions to analyse the cultural factors, it is possible to study the international context of the human capital in each subsidiary by using reliable international indicators provided in the Global Competitiveness Index.

Entrepreneurs require some elements of human capital investment (work experience, education, industry-specific and entrepreneurship-specific experience) and skills to perform entrepreneurial activities in different entrepreneurship phases. However, entrepreneurship literature is silent on which specific human capital investments and skills are needed in each of the entrepreneurship phases (nascent, new business and established phases). In addition, studies that applied human capital to understanding entrepreneurial behaviour focused on either opportunity recognition or exploitation without dealing with more than one phase of the entrepreneurship process. Accordingly, this study investigated the human capital investments and skills specific to the different entrepreneurship phases. This study employed a sequential mixed-method research design using interviews and surveys. The interviews were conducted to: identify the sources of entrepreneurship skills; discover skills relevant in each entrepreneurship phase; and use the results of the qualitative phase to develop a survey instrument for measuring applied skills in a larger population of entrepreneurs. The data was collected in face-to-face interviews with a purposive sample of 15 entrepreneurs (five per entrepreneurship phase) and six national experts in entrepreneurship. The quantitative study was aimed at confirming the skills sets derived from the qualitative phase, determining their significance across the different entrepreneurship phases, and testing the relationship between skills, sources of skills that are the human capital investments, and entrepreneurship phases. After validating the quantitative measuring instrument, a questionnaire survey covered 235 entrepreneurs who participated in the study. Through confirmatory factor analysis, the categories of skills developed were: start-up skills; core business skills (business management, financial management, human resource management and marketing skills); personal and leadership skills (social and interpersonal, leadership and personal skills); and technical skills. The hypotheses were tested using inferential statistics that included the Kruskal-Wallis test, Mann-Whitney U test, and hierarchical multiple regression. The results showed that applying start-up, social and interpersonal, technical, and human resource management skills across the entrepreneurship phases produces an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship, thus they increase from the nascent to new-business phase and decline in the established phase. Marketing, personal and leadership skills have a negative curvilinear relationship with the entrepreneurship phases as they are applied maximally in the nascent phase but decrease in the new-business and established phases. Financial management and business management skills have a positive curvilinear relationship with the entrepreneurship phases as they increase from the nascent phase, through new business to the established phase. Overall, the relationship between skills and entrepreneurship phases was found to be an inverted U-shaped curvilinear, thus the application of skills positively increases from the nascent to new-business phase but declines from the new-business to established phases. The study also revealed that, as entrepreneurs start businesses, in the nascent phase the use of human capital investments (especially formal education) as a source of skills declines, thus creating a need to acquire more entrepreneurship-specific investments. When the application of skills declines from the new-business to the established phase, entrepreneurs seek additional sources of skills to counter the depreciating skill sets. In addition to acquiring skills from human capital investments, entrepreneurs learn skills from actors in their social networks. So skills acquired from the human capital and social actors are applied unequally in the different entrepreneurship phases. Finally, the entrepreneurship phase and some identified contextual factors were found to have a moderating effect on the relationship between skills and human capital investments. The results of the study assisted in developing a skills framework that will give a deeper understanding of human capital investments and skills needed in the entrepreneurship phases. This study makes a contribution to policy-makers, scholars and training institutions to categorize and sample entrepreneurs according to their skills requirements and entrepreneurship phases. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / PhD / Unrestricted

O objetivo do presente trabalho é analisar empiricamente a relação entre indicadores de qualidade da educação e o crescimento econômico no Brasil, com ênfase em medidas de qualidade da educação, representadas pelos resultados de provas em proficiência escolar ao nível dos estados brasileiros. A análise empírica, seguindo os conceitos de Hanushek e Kimko (2000) sobre a qualidade da educação, utilizou como referência metodológica dois modelos macroeconômicos tradicionais da análise do crescimento com capital humano: (i) o modelo de crescimento baseado na equação de Mincer; (ii) modelo de Solow estendido sugerido por Mankiw, Romer e Weil (1992). Utilizando a metodologia de dados em painel, os resultados sugerem que a quantidade de capital humano teve uma contribuição maior para o crescimento do produto por trabalhador do que a qualidade da força de trabalho. Alguns fatores que podem explicar a baixa contribuição da qualidade do capital humano para o crescimento são: o curto período de análise, a dificuldade em se obter medidas mais precisas de qualidade do capital humano, e na média, a qualidade do capital humano no país é comparativamente baixa (em relação a outros países), como resultado das muitas e reconhecidas deficiências do sistema educacional brasileiro. / This research aims analyze empirically the relationship between indicators of education quality and economic growth in Brazil, emphasizing the measures of education quality represented by the results on school proficiency tests at the Brazilians states level. The empirical analysis, following the concepts of Hanushek e Kimko (2000) about quality education, was based on two traditional macroeconomic growth models with human capital: (i) the growth model based on the Mincer equation, (ii) extended Solow model suggested by Mankiw, Romer and Weil (1992). Using the panel data methodology, the results suggest the quantity of human capital had a greater contribution to the output per worker growth than the labor force quality. Some factors that may explain the low contribution of human capital quality to growth is the short period of analysis, the difficulty to define quality measures of human capital, and, on average, the quality of human capital in the country which is relatively low (compared with other countries), as a result of the many and recognized deficiencies of the Brazilian educational system.

Policy makers in the global development industry in the past two decades have shown increasing interest in engaging diasporas in homeland development. This research aims to address the gap of searching for better practices of engaging diaspora in homeland development, using the case of Tajik diaspora in Russia. The research objective is to identify the most promising areas to effectively engage Tajik diaspora in Russia in homeland development. The research adheres to abductive logic of enquiry, and uses qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews conducted remotely with representatives of Tajik diaspora organizations and Tajik diaspora members in three major Russian cities (Moscow, St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg). The study uses structuration theory as a theoretical framework to conceptualize diaspora organizations and their practices. For analysing data, pragmatic, administrative, centralized and decentralised approaches to diaspora engagement in homeland development are used as an analytical framework. The scope of this study is not able to generate representative results, but drawn conclusions provide basis for further research. The combination of the theoretical and analytical framework applied within this study allowed to identify gaps between existing diaspora engagement strategy and the actual capabilities present in the diaspora. This study indicates that the most promising areas for effectively engaging Tajik diaspora in Russia in homeland development is bridging said gaps by institutionalizing existing development practices through a decentralized pragmatic approach. The analysis also argues that diversifying channels of administrative approach to diaspora engagement and scaling down the projects to the local level could maximize effectiveness of diaspora engagement strategy.